Professional Groups

The Extinction of Petroleum Man

IOP Energy Group Evening Lecture

The Last Oil Shock: Why peak oil will happen by 2020 at the lates

David Strahan

18:00 for 18:30 Thursday 17^th January 2008

Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, LondonW1B 1NT

Lecture Synopsis

2007 is the year that peak oil went main stream in both the oil industry and the media. There is a growing consensus that it will occur by 2020, and even evidence that it may already have happened. Yet there is still a great deal of resistance to the idea among economists, politicians and so-called experts, largely based on ignorance of the rudiments of oil depletion. David Strahan explained why the arguments employed by optimists to suggest that peak oil is not imminent – technology, reserves growth, the impact of a rising oil price, energy efficiency – are fallacious, and why peak oil will occur by 2020 at the latest.

David Strahan is an award-winning business correspondent, investigative journalist and documentary film-maker, with many years experience of popularizing some of the most difficult and important stories in business and science. For a decade he reported and produced major investigations for BBC televisions' flagship business strand The Money Programme, and for its world-renowned science documentary series Horizon, making highly acclaimed films such as Inside the Enron Scandal and The Moscow Theatre Siege. He is now also the author of a provocative but authoritive book about 'peak oil', called "The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man" (John Murray, 2007); see also http://www.lastoilshock.com/.

Lecture notes (Copyright David Strahan 2008)

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